The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-03-27
THE GIRL Poems
ON A MEXICAN HACIENDA
DRESS AND RABBITS.
Her Attire Consists OF Nothing on
the Earth but One Short
Dress.

AS a rule, the most interesting OBJ
jects which a visitor will find on a
hacienda are the muchachas, or girl
poems, than whom more picturesque
type of peasantry cannot be met on
the hills of Normandy or in the wales
of Switzerland. When the lumber
ing old stage coach, laden with PAS
sengers, comes Gathering up to the
gates of a wayside hacienda to crave
shelter for the night, always the first
to issue from the gray walls in an
swer to the divers cherry "Buenos
dias, Senores?" is the muchacha.
True to the fiber of curiosity which
runs through the feminine descend
ant of Eve, she is anxious to know
who has arrived; she wants to watch
their descent from the diligencia,
and all their subsequent movements,
and she is quite willing to get up
Irritation on the instant with any one
who may interest her. Whatever
her age, the muchacha is but grown
up child, fully developed physically
at the age of 10, always simple, pic
turesque and contented. Her name
is probably Dolores, Retugio, Guada-
lupe or Antonio. Though she never
saw bonnet in her life and
would not know it from
fish net if you should give her
one, her face is never freckled, and
her nut brown skin is soft as velvet,
never having been roughened by
soap, powder or cosmetics. Her
hands and feet are very small, though
never manacled by gloves, shoes or
stockings; her limbs are invariably
we'll rounded and her bust superb.
Her ietty hair, tied at the ends by
bit of bright hued ribbon, hangs be-
hind her bare brown shoulders in
two long braids. 1t is not banged
over the eyes like a poodle's, nor
crimped like an Ethiopian's, but,
parted straight through the middle,
is glossy as the ravens wing and
black as the famous atzqbatche Of her
native hills. The freaks of tickle
fashion make no change in her attire,
which is always the same-nothing
ON earth but one short skirt aud
a loose chemise, the latter generally
embroidered about the shoulders,
leaving her symmetrical arms entire
ly naked, and, in fact, most OF her
person to the waist. She is entirely
unconscious of a want of further
clothing, aud the utmost "smarting
up" she ever INDUCES in is to add
string of red beads to her neck, a
brass bracelet or two to her arms,
and to hang a pair Of enor-
nous silver hoops in her ears.
For church wear and for
such festive occasions as a bull fight
or function del gallo, she has a blue
or black cotton rebose-a sort of
shawl-which with one careless toss
she winds tightly over her head and
shoulders. The muchacha is al
ways the same-whether she be a
child of peon or of house servant,
but even the heiress Of a small farmer
"a product peculiar to rural Mexico;
attractive in youth, an old woman at
30, yet unsophisticated as a baby if
she lives to the age of 80. She is
governed by the tropical instincts OF
a passionate race, rather than by the
trammels of education-coquettish
by nature, yet as innocent Of pre-
meditated grossness as was Eve be-
fore the fashion of fig leaves. As
may be imagined, the manner in
which such creature is wooed and
won by men is really as unique as
herself. She is hampered by no such
rigid rules of etiquette as environ her
aristocratic neighbor, Juanita, there
fore the Mexican Haidee, following
the bent of her inclinations, does her
full share of the wooing, and if
crossed in love or aroused to jeal
ousy, has been known to handle a
dagger witt the fury of Jael.